(2004-01-26) Goldberger Cellphone Place

Paul Goldberger notes that the Cell Phone reduces our Engagement with our spatial location. Even when you are in a place that retains its intensity, its specialness, and its ability to confer a defining context on your life, it doesn't have the all-consuming effect these places used to. You no longer feel that being in one place cuts you off from other places... But the cell phone has changed our sense of place more than faxes and computers and e-mail because of its ability to intrude into every moment in every possible place. When you walk along the street and talk on a cell phone, you are not on the street sharing the communal experience of urban life. You are in some other place--someplace at the other end of your phone conversation. You are there, but you are not there. I think the underlying problem is that people can't bear to be alone with their thoughts, so they make phone calls to seek connection, or at least distraction.